When congestion or rubbernecking occurs on major highways, vehicles stand still and idle their engines. As the congestion builds up, the wait time increases. The congestion wastes fuel and aggravates the driver's nerves.
Often it is the drivers own curiosity that helps to fuel the delay which is known as rubbernecking. As the name implies, rubbernecking refers to the action of passing drivers or motorists who divert their attention from the roadway in front of them to the unusual situation that is existing within eyeshot of the driver. This unusual situation can be a car accident, a hit pedestrian, road construction, road repair, a patrol car that pulled over a motorist, or some other disturbance. Because the driver is drawn to the disturbance, the driver must slow the car down to get a better view, and this leads to what is known as “rubbernecking.”
It is a desire of this invention to address several issues regarding rubbernecking; 1) find a way to decrease the wait time, 2) decrease waste of fuel, and 3) attempt to remove the need to rubberneck.
Here are some fuel expenditure conditions in the US, as illustrated in FIG. 9. Almost 140 billion gals of fuel is used in the US. During a traffic jams, the study estimates, that in 75 of the largest metropolitan areas, almost 6 billion gals are wasted in traffic jams. Not to mention the time that is wasted waiting in a traffic jam.
A desirable feature of this invention would be to deter the need to perform rubbernecking. In addition, another feature of this invention would be to control the traffic flow while in a congested state to decrease the congestion.